Malaysian prime minister announces revised budget

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Thursday announced the revised budget for 2016, which he said would ensure that the nation’s ‘economic and financial position remain on the right trajectory’, local media reported.

Najib, who is also the country’s finance minister, announced details of the recalibrated budget in a live telecast.

Major points include a special tax relief of RM2,000 (about $476) for those who earned a monthly wage of RM8,000 ($1,904) and below in 2015, and for a 3 percent reduction of employees’ contributions to the Employees Provident Fund in an effort to boost spending, The Malaysian Insider reported.

Details of the new budget came just days after the prime minister was cleared by Malaysia’s attorneygeneral of any criminal wrongdoing over hundreds of millions of dollars in political donations in his bank accounts.

It was ruled that the Saudi Royal family gave Najib around $606 million as a “personal donation”, while around $9.8 million from SRC International, a former subsidiary of state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), was given without his knowledge.

The country’s anticorruption agency has since said it plans to appeal the attorneygeneral’s ruling.